VSI Install Guide – Unified Storage Management

 

Hopefully you had a chance to read my last blog post on how to setup and install the Virtual Storage Integrator – Storage Viewer plugin for vCenter.  If not, you will want to go back and review it before moving on to this next plugin.  You can certainly install these independently of each other but there were some great features and benefits of the plugin that you might want to take advantage of.  The next plugin I’m going to take you through is our VSI – Unified Storage Management.  Again, this is a FREE FREE FREE plugin

I’m going to actually create a couple of blog posts around this one plugin because frankly, it just has a TON of great features that would require a very very long blog post to cover.  In a nut shell, the Unified Storage Management (USM) plugin can provision NFS, VMFS Datastores, RDM Volumes in addition to array-based compression and array-based cloning of Virtual Machine in NFS.  The cloning feature does both Full Clones (or Copies) and Fast Clones (snaps) of VMDK files.  It also has access into VMware View as well as in USM 5.1 they added in Citrix XenDesktop control.  VERY COOL.

In my opinion, this plugin is really geared towards the blended Storage/VMware admin that would spend time managing both (Storage and VMware) environments.  It also has a tool called Access Control Utility that is focused on those companies that have split duties between Storage and VMware.  In other words, you have a dedicated Storage Admin, and you have a dedicated VMware admin and they don’t share credentials.  In this case, the Storage Admin can create Access Control profiles for the VMware Admins, specifying the EMC Storage Systems(VNX, VMAX etc),  that the Admin will have access into.  This could include things like, RAID groups and Storage Pools that will be available to them.  You can read all about all of these features, functions etc in the EMC VSI for VMware vSphere Unified Storage Management Product Guide (version 5.1).

My hope is to cover as many of these as I can but it will not be everything.  In this blog post I thought I would focus in on downloading and installing the USM   I’ll then post a couple of more blogs around the VNX integration, as well as VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop integration.  I’ll probably also toss in something around the Access Control Utility and anything else that jumps to mind   For now, let’s look at the all the components you will need to download to get this working. 

The first thing you want to grab is the USM Product Guide and the bits themselves.  The Product Guide is found on Powerlink, under – Support – Technical Documentation and Advisories – Software T-Z – Documentation – Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) – Virtual Storage Integrator for vSphere – Installation Configuration.  Ya, I know – that’s a lot of clicking !!  But it’s the journey not the destination right?   Anyway, grab the VSI for VMware vSphere: Unified Storage Management Product Guide (3rd group down).  Grab that guide and start flipping through Chapter 2, as you make your way over to download the bits.

You can find the software on PowerLink under Support- Software Downloads and Licenses – Downloads T-Z – Virtual Storage Integrator.  Scroll down to VSI Unified Storage Management and grab the ZIP file with the date of Jan 13, 2012.  It should be the 5.1 version of the USM.  As it implies, that is a zip’d up file that has the following 3 files listed:

If you were flipping through Chapter 2, you would have noticed little messages like this in the text:

That’s their subtle way of telling you that if you want some of the cool VNX features, you also need to download the Navisphere Secure CLI and you will also see a request for Unisphere CLI.  The Unisphere CLI is mostly geared towards the VNXe platform.  If you don’t have one, don’t worry about it.  Since we are looking at this from a VNX perspective, and will be using it to show off the features, you want to head over to (you guessed – long list of clicks)  Support – Software Downloads and Licensing – Downloads J-0 – Navisphere Server Software and grab the Windows Navisphere Server Software 7.31 executable dated Jan 11, 2012.  If you have a VNXe, then just go to SoftwareDownloads –T – Z –  Unishphere Server Software Downloads and grab the software for it.

On Page 18 of the guide it takes you screen shot by screen shot through the install but just in case you don’t like to read them, here is the process:

Installing NAVI CLI

1. Click on the NaviCLI-Win-32-x86-en_us-7.31.30.0.90-1.exe file

2. Just click Next

3. Click Next again

4. To keep from having to enter in the credentials each time, this will create a security file that’s encrypted. 

5.  This setups the level of security you want for the Certificate.

6.Verify all the requests and then hit Install

7.Watch it go !!

8.Click DONE.  Lets move on to installing the USM now.

 

The next step in this install is to actually install the USM plugin.  Make sure you have vSphere Client closed on the computer you are setting this up on. 

 

1.I’m assuming you have already unzipped the file, so just click on the EMC-VSI-USM-5.1 executable.

 

2. It’s going to start the unpacking process and preparing to be installed.

 

3.First thing it does is yells at us about not having the Unishphere CLI installed.  We skipped that since I wasn’t going to show any VNXe stuff, but if you installed it you wouldn’t be seeing this message.  If you eventually want to add it, it’s not big deal just download, and run it and the USM will see it.  Easy Peasy.

 

4. Now lets click Next

 

5. Accept the License Agreement

 

6. go ahead and click Install

 

7. Watch it go

8. Click finish and we are done !!

 

9. Now, lets open up the vSphere Client, log into vCenter and go to our plugin.  You will now see the Unified Storage Management option.  Click on it.

 

10. First thing I noticed is that my VNX showed up.  This was brought over from our VSI-Storage Viewer install I did in my last blog post.  But we still need to edit it.

11. Click on the VNX and select Edit

 

12. Make sure both blocks are selected – when I did this install, File was already selected but not block.  Click next

13.Enter your VNX credentials.  If you don’t remember, just open up Unisphere and you will see the IP address of the SP’s and Control station

 

 

14. The next page asks you for the Control Station info, also you will see a box for Configuring the DHSM.  Check that box and then click Next.

 

 

15. This is where you create the DHSM account.  The net-net is the DHSM account is used for NAS CIFS/NFS authentication mostly for things like this plugin, or other EMC products that might need to communicate with the Control station of the VNX to do tasks etc.    Once you enter in this info, just click Finish. 

16. If you look down to the tasks area in your vSphere Client – you will see that it starts the editing process of the plugin.  When it’s done, you will see the status change to Complete.

 

While I have you attention, lets go see what sorts of stuff we can add to our USM plugin. 

1.You should be back at the following screen (if not, get to it) and click the Add button.

2. Next click on the “Enter Storage System or Connection Broker Credentials” and click next.

3. Here is a list of things that USM can manage/control etc.  Notice that you can add more EMC storage systems (if you have more than 1).  You will also notice that the EMC VNXe is gray’d out, that’s because we didn’t install the Unisphere CLI program.  Once you install it, that will be selectable.  Also you will see VMware View Manager and XenDesktop Controller.  Those are future blogs so check back soon on how to set that up and what sort of features and functions you can get out of them.

 

So that’s it for the installation and setup steps for Navisphere CLI and USM.  Like I said above, the next blog post will take you through what you can do with everything we setup in USM.

Thanks,

@vTexan